The smoke rising from the colossal subterranean crater did not drift; it hung like a heavy gray shroud over the shattered ruins.
From the fractured lip of the upper tunnels, two figures emerged, stepping cautiously over the jagged, unstable rocks.
Hongo, the chief doctor of the Red Hair Pirates, adjusted his medical pack, his eyes scanning the sweeping devastation with a mixture of professional assessment and sheer disbelief. Beside him, Limejuice adjusted his skull-patterned beanie, his hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his electric staff.
"Good grief..." Hongo murmured, stepping down into the crater. His boots crunched loudly against the pulverized limestone. "Did a rogue meteor strike this place? The entire structural foundation of the lower levels has been completely turned to dust."
"Look over there," Limejuice pointed, his sunglasses reflecting the faint moonlight filtering down from the massive hole in the ceiling. "In the center. They're both down."
Hongo didn't waste another second. He scrambled down the steep incline, his medical kit rattling against his hip.
In the absolute center of the wasteland lay Norwell D. Giovanni and Charlotte Katakuri. They were separated by barely three feet of blood-splattered dirt.
Katakuri lay flat on his back, his massive chest barely moving, his newly exposed face uncovered and pale from extreme blood loss. Giovanni was collapsed face-first beside him, his fingers still twitching weakly near the hilt of Gol D. Roger's cutlass.
Hongo dropped to his knees beside Giovanni, instantly flipping him over with practiced, gentle efficiency. He tore open a sterile pack of gauze, pressing it firmly against a deep, purplish indentation on Giovanni's ribs where Katakuri's final strike had landed.
"Hang in there, kid," Hongo muttered, pulling out a set of silver surgical needles and high-grade antiseptic.
Giovanni's eyelids fluttered, a low, agonizing groan escaping his throat as the harsh stinging of the medicine flared his senses. His eyes, usually bursting with feral energy, were glazed and out of focus. He coughed, a thick splatter of crimson staining his chin.
"H-Hongo...?" Giovanni rasped, his voice barely a whisper against the howling wind above. "Shanks... where is... Shanks...?"
"Save your breath," Hongo ordered sharply, his hands moving with blinding, calculated speed as he began binding the shattered ribs with heavy compression bandages. "You've got at least four fractured ribs, internal bleeding, and severe Haki exhaustion. Beckman and Lucky Roux went up to the surface to check on Shanks. He's fine. You, on the other hand, will die of a collapsed lung if you keep talking."
Giovanni's gaze drifted past Hongo's shoulder, landing on the unconscious, bleeding form of the Sweet Commander. Even in defeat, Katakuri's face looked fiercely imposing, though the massive gash on his shoulder continued to ooze dark blood onto the stones.
"Hongo..." Giovanni choked out, his fingers weakly tugging at the doctor's sleeve. "Please... treat him too. After me. He... he fought with everything."
Hongo paused, his needle hovering in the air. He looked at the young rookie, then at the fallen monster of the Big Mom Pirates. A slow, respectful sigh escaped the doctor's lips.
"You're a soft-hearted idiot, Giovanni," Hongo said, though his tone softened as he knotted the bandage tight. "But a deal is a deal. I'll patch him up enough so he doesn't bleed out. Now shut up and close your eyes."
---
Up on the fractured plains of Dressrosa's surface, the air was entirely different.
Shanks stood tall, the sea-stone alloy case clutched casually in his left hand. His white shirt was dusted with ash, but his stance was steady, his red hair catching the moonlight. A few yards away, King and Marco were in terrible shape.
King was down on one knee, his great black wings tattered and smoking, his leather armor split across the chest where Shanks' advanced Haki emission had detonated. Marco was propped up against a broken stone pillar, his blue phoenix flames flickering so weakly they looked like dying candle stubs.
Shanks twirled Gryphon once before resting the blunt edge over his shoulder, a confident, challenging grin playing on his lips.
"Well?" Shanks called out, his voice echoing across the wasteland. "If you two still want to dance... I've still got plenty of rhythm left in me."
Marco let out a long, wheezing laugh, dropping his head against the stone pillar. His shoulders slumped in absolute surrender. "I give up-yoi... Pops always said the New World was breeding a new generation of monsters, but you... you're entirely ridiculous, Red Hair. I know when a hand is thoroughly played."
"Marco!" King growled, his voice a guttural, furious hiss through his cracked mask.
The Lunarian forced himself to his feet, his entire body trembling with agonizing strain. The flame on his back flared violently, burning through his remaining life force as he gripped the hilt of his katana with both hands. His pride as an All-Star of Onigashima, his loyalty to Kaido. It forbade him from ever bending the knee to a rookie.
"A Lunarian does not yield to a human brat!" King roared, stepping forward.
*Blink.*
The world did not slow down; it froze.
Shanks' eyes instantly dilated. Within the monochromatic blue theater of his Future Sight, a terrifying image manifested a fraction of a second too late. A cross-shaped glint of blinding, golden light was already occupying the space directly behind his back.
Before the vision could even dissolve from his mind, a voice materialized right at his ear. Infuriatingly slow, deeply relaxed, and dripping with casual malice.
"Have you ever been kicked... at the speed of light~?"
BOOM!
A column of pure, volatile kinetic light exploded against Shanks. The sheer velocity of the strike bypassed the sound barrier entirely, creating a localized vacuum. The concussive force blasted Shanks horizontally across the plain, his body tearing through three massive stone spires like a skipping stone before he disappeared into a mountain of debris a hundred yards away.
The sudden displacement of air caused the sea-stone alloy case to slip from his fingers, tumbling through the air in slow motion.
"What?!" Marco gasped, his eyes widening in pure horror.
King froze, his blade lowering as his instinctual flight-or-fight response screamed at maximum volume.
From the dissolving particles of gold where Shanks had just been standing, a tall, imposing figure slowly coalesced.
He wore a sharp, yellow-and-white pinstriped suit, a Marine coat draped loosely over his shoulders like a regal cape. His hands were tucked casually into his trousers pockets, and his amber-tinted sunglasses gleamed beneath the moon.
"My, my..." the man drawled, his lips curling into a lazy, mocking pout as he reached up to adjust his glasses. "That felt rather solid. The youth of today are truly terrifying... I am Admiral Kizaru~"
"A Marine Admiral?!" King roared.
Despite his broken ribs, King erupted into motion. He abandoned his sword, his body transforming instantly into his giant pteranodon form as he ignited his wings into a massive, sweeping wave of concentrated magma fire.
"Imperial Flaming Wings!"
A colossal serpent of pure, melting rock surged toward Kizaru, the heat instantly vitrifying the dirt below into black glass.
Kizaru didn't even take his hands out of his pockets. He merely tilted his upper body backwards, his frame turning entirely into weightless, shimmering light particles. The magma dragon tore right through his torso, splashing harmlessly against the ground behind him without singing a single thread of his yellow suit.
"Ohhh... how scary~" Kizaru drawled from within the flames.
Instantly, Kizaru crossed his arms in front of his chest, forming a small, brilliant sphere of light between his thumbs.
"Yata no Kagami!"
A literal beam of light shot out from his fingers, bouncing off a distant rock formation at a sharp angle. In a microsecond, Kizaru's entire physical body traveled along the beam, materializing directly above King's massive pteranodon form.
"Sacred Jewel!"
Kizaru unleashed a torrential barrage of hyper-compressed light beams from his feet. Each beam possessed the piercing power of a laser cannon.
Thoom! Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!
The sky lit up as if day had broken. The light beams pierced through King's massive wings, detonating against his dense Lunarian hide. Because King had dropped his defenses for a burst of speed, the lasers tore into his flesh, triggering a massive chain of explosions that sent the giant ancient zoan crashing into the earth, creating a smoking trench fifty meters long. King reverted to his human form, coughing violently, his armor completely shattered.
"King!" Marco yelled.
Summoning every single drop of his remaining stamina, Marco pushed off the stone pillar. His arms transformed into brilliant blue wings of regeneration, his legs shifting into sharp, Haki-clad phoenix talons. He cut through the smoke like a streak of azure lightning, aiming a vicious, horizontal slash directly at Kizaru's neck.
"Crane Claw!"
Kizaru casually raised his right hand, a flash of light extending from his palm to form a beautifully long, glowing blade of solid energy.
"Ama no Murakumo."
SHING!
The sword of light intercepted Marco's hardened talon. The resulting clash created a high-pitched, metallic screech that vibrated through the teeth of anyone nearby. Sparks of golden light and blue fire sprayed outward, illuminating Kizaru's bored, untroubled expression.
"Whitebeard's first son..." Kizaru murmured, his voice a lazy whisper. "Your flames are quite beautiful. But..."
With a sudden, sickening burst of speed, Kizaru disengaged the blade, appearing directly inside Marco's guard. He didn't use the sword; he simply raised his left leg, the knee crackling with unstable, blinding golden energy.
"...they don't burn hot enough~"
WHAM!
Kizaru delivered a brutal, point-blank axe kick to Marco's midsection. The explosion of light particles blew away Marco's remaining phoenix flames entirely. The First Division Commander shot downward like a fallen star, smashing into the bedrock with enough force to crater the earth.
The battlefield fell into a suffocating, smoky silence.
Kizaru dispersed his light sword, the particles fading into the night air. He walked forward with slow, deliberate steps, his shiny leather shoes clicking against the stones. He stopped right beside the fallen sea-stone case, casually tapping it with the toe of his boot to flip it into the air before catching it smoothly by the handle.
A few yards away, Marco lay inside his shallow crater. The blue flames tried to manifest around his wounds, but they were small, erratic, and immediately died out. His stamina was completely spent; he couldn't even find the strength to lift his chin from the dirt.
"Damn it..." Marco hissed, a thick mixture of saliva and blood dripping from his lips as he glared at the pinstriped Marine. "Why the hell... is an Admiral here...?"
Kizaru looked down through his amber lenses, his face twisting into that signature, deeply mocking expression of false sympathy. He adjusted his grip on the Devil Fruit case, resting his free hand back into his pocket.
"My, my... King, the King of the Beasts' right hand, Whitebeard's first son..." Kizaru drawled, his voice carrying clearly across the ruined landscape. "You truly are terrifying commanders. Right hands of the world's strongest pirates~"
His eyes suddenly flashed with a cold, predatory light behind his tinted glasses.
"But surely... you don't think you can defeat an Admiral of the Navy while you are that exhausted~?"
---
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